Before his appointment as Professor for Computer Science at Graz University of Technology Graz Dieter Fellner held academic positions at Technical University Braunschweig, Germany, where he has founded the Institute of Computer Graphics, the University of Bonn, Germany, the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, the University of Denver, Colorado, and at the Graz University of Technology. After his studies of Technical Mathematics in Graz (Diploma 1981, Doktorate 1984, Habilitation 1988) his career started in the MUPID development team (1982), where he was responsible for the graphics components of the videotex decoder. Dieter Fellner's research projects (see www.cgv.tugraz.at) comprise a broad spectrum of areas from formal languages, telematics services, and user interface design, to software engineering, computer graphics and digital libraries. In the latter field he has coordinated a strategic initiative funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) from 1997 till 2005 which financed approx. 50 researchers per year in 21 research groups.

Dieter Fellner also serves as Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD (located in Darmstadt, Rostock and Singapore) and as CEO of Fraunhofer Austria (located in Vienna and Graz).

Dieter Fellner has authored one of the German standard textbooks on computer graphics (1988, 2nd ed. 1992) and together with A. Endres he has written a book on digital libraries (2000). In the areas of computer graphics and digital libraries Dieter Fellner is a member of the editorial boards of leading journals and a member of the program committees of many international conferences and workshops. In 1997 and 2003 he was program co-chair for the EUROGRAPHICS conference which is one of the most important events in the field. Furthermore, D. Fellner is a consultant for the German Economy Council, for the German Research Foundation, the German Ministry for Education and Research (bmbf) and the European Commission.

In 2019 Prof. Fellner was awarded the honorary title of Doctor of Engineering (Dr.-Ing. eh.) by the University of Rostock.